The Bay Area Forest Activist Newsletter, Winter 2003

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Challenge to PL’s Sustained Yield Plan Coming to Trial

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After almost four years of delays and legal maneuvers, Pacific Lumber and the state agencies that approved PL's logging permits in the infamous Headwaters Forest "deal" will finally face the legal challenges to the deal brought by environmental groups in March 1999. The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Sierra Club are seeking a court injunction to invalidate the Incidental Take Permit, Sustained Yield Plan (SYP), and other permits approved by the California Department of Forestry (CDF) and the California Department of Fish and Game that have given PL carte blanche to log the critical habitat of marbled murrelet, coho salmon, and other old-growth dependent species. . The trial is scheduled to begin March 24 in Humboldt County Superior Court before Judge John Golden.

The defendants’ clever legal ploys and failure to provide a complete administrative record to the court succeeded in keeping the case from coming to trial while PL forged ahead with logging its old-growth redwood and Douglas fir forests, much of which is occupied marbled murrelet habitat. In late August, Judge Golden ordered PL to immediately halt all logging operations on its 211,000 acres carried out under the permits being challenged by EPIC and the Sierra Club to avoid causing irreversible harm to imperiled wildlife and public trust resources before the merits of the case could be heard. In a display of unabashed corporate arrogance, PL ignored the court stay and continued logging at a break neck pace in the Mattole, areas immediately adjacent to two tree-sitters in Freshwater, and other fragile watersheds. PL claimed that prior CDF approval of its logging plans exempted them from the court injunction. The company's court filings show they logged approximately 1 million board feet per day since the order was issued, the equivalent of over 200 logging trucks daily.

PL’s Sustained Yield Plan outlines how the timber company intends to conduct sustainable logging operations over a 50-year period (clearly an oxymoron in PL’s case). An Incidental Take Permit, which PL obtained as part of its HCP approved with the Headwaters Deal, is essentially a permit to kill endangered species. The lawsuit also challenges 1603 permits issued to PL by state agencies allowing alteration of streambeds and stream crossings.

Sign up for BACH’s alerts and you will receive notice of the details of the hearing. Or goto http://www.headwaterspreserve.org.




Other Articles in This Issue

• What Will it Take? Forest Defense Goes to New Heights and Depths
  Dragon fly, wren, fireweed, lupine, sequoia, butterfly... Are these names of forest-dependant species? Yes, in a ...
  
  
• Campaign For Old Growth
  As a result of Susan Moloney’s heroic 52-day hunger strike to pressure Gov. Gray Davis to make good on his 1998 campaign...
  
  
• Pepper Spray Case Coming Back to Trial
  Attorneys who represented Judi Bari in her successful lawsuit against the FBI for violating her civil rights joined the ...
  
  
• Redway Redwood Grove saved from Pacific Lumber's Saws
  After seven years of negotiations, litigation, community organizing and lobbying, the California Department of Parks and...
  
  
• Public Lands: Wildfires and Smokescreens
  In response to last summer's catastrophic forest fires throughout the West, the Bush administration is pushing a so-call...
  
  
• Freshwater Watershed Under Siege from PL’s Logging
  State and federal officials hailed the 1999 Headwaters Deal for preserving 7,400 acres of redwood forest and imposing on...
  
  
• "Teflon CEO" Hurwitz Evades Federal Regulators Over Collapse Of Maxxam S&L
  Charles Hurwitz, the notorious chairman and CEO of Maxxam Corp., proved to be a Teflon corporate raider by evading feder...
  
  
• Watershed Update from the Mattole Restoration Council
  Greetings from the Mattole! The Mattole River watershed, located in southern Humboldt County, empties into the Pacific s...
  
  
• Once Again, the Fox Guards the Chicken Coop
  The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is the state agency responsible for protecting North Coast rivers, ...
  
  
• Controversial Logging of State Forest Approved!
  Despite the public outcry, on January 8, 2003, the State Board of Forestry cleared the way for logging of 1,000 acres of...
  
  
• Civil, Criminal, Defensive, Offensive: Activists in the Courts Legal Update
  Feb. 3: Criminal charges against tree-sitters Abstract Jane Marsh and Jaime LeRoy Harris were heard in Humboldt County S...